Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

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One thing has changed dramatically in education over just the past 100 years. This [1] is an entrance exam for Harvard in 1869. It was expected that the applicant would be fluent in Greek, Latin, English, that they would have a exceptional grasp of history and geography across the entire world, be able to carry out complex mathematical calculations, compose geometric proofs, and more. That trend also was the same as you went down to high school and even middle school.

The reason the curriculums were like this is that education was largely optional, and so it was designed for the exceptional over-achievers who would voluntarily, with no extrinsic force, opt into such. Now a days education, including tertiary, is designed for anybody with a pulse. And this creates a terrible scenario for overachievers and underachievers alike. The overachievers are bored senseless in lengthy classes because "Yes, I got what you said 40 minutes ago. Why can't we move on?" By contrast the underachievers lack the attention span and focus to follow a 50, let alone 90, minute lesson, so struggle even given the much slower pace.

A 'TikTok-ified' education is really just a desire to stop wasting so much time, but we waste that time because of this change in education. And far from creating a nation of scholars - middling or otherwise, this change has instead just created a nation where your barista probably has a college degree, and 6 figures of debt to show for it.

[1] - https://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvard...

I studied quite a bit of latin in high school (not in the USA through) and I have to say I'm not overly impressed by the test. It certainly doesn't test for fluency in Latin or Greek, most of the exercises are purely about grammar. The exercises that do require translation skills, don't require any vocabulary either. The sentences themselves are quite long, but latin grammar lends itself to complex run-on-sentences. I think the better students in my class would have done quite well on this test even through latin wasn't one of their main subjects.

The Greek portion seems fairly similar if not a bit easier.

Every single history question is about ancient Rome or Greece. Every single geography question is about the location of rivers. How does this constitute an "exceptional grasp of history and geography across the entire world"?

The maths section does seem to have some difficult parts, we didn't do any proofs in the regular high school curriculum for example. The other math sections just show how much the requirements have shifted, a lot of the exercises in the arithmatic section got replaced by calculators, but I don't see any calculus on this test.

Looking at this, I think today's Harvard students are more educated overall than the ones in 1869. Our priorities just shifted.

I have to disagree. Your example illustrates that the quality demands of Harvard entry have declined and it's reasonable to assume that other universities have also become more open, as you claim. You're right about that. Universities are less elitist than they used to be.

Nevertheless, the overall demands in higher education have increased tremendously and the courses have also become more focused. In most disciplines, what formerly would have counted as a Ph.D. Thesis is nowadays at M.A. level. I've been in committees for hiring postdocs and Ph.D. students in the humanities, and it's insane what kind of demands are put on the students. I know some center of excellence in my discipline that (unofficially) requires one publication in a good international journal to be taken into consideration as a Ph.D. student. The majority of postdocs who apply for a one year grant nowadays have CVs that would almost certainly have made them assistant professors 30 years ago. There are also more courses and more subjects to learn because progress in science has accelerated very rapidly. For example, someone who studies CS nowadays will learn proofs in complexity theory that used to be cutting edge research 40 years ago.

Overall, I don't buy your negative claims. Over-achievers can quickly finish their undergraduate studies and will move on. At most universities it is possible to cram your curriculum and exams and pass "easy" undergraduate courses very quickly. Lack of elitism is an imaginary problem, probably often made up for political reasons. If you want to see real problems, look at the high student fees, accompanying debt, and the resulting desire to focus on practical job skills and overly fast-paced studies. These are detrimental to science, of course.

Why would you call it elitist? From my perspective something like this is the ultimate 'democratization' of education. If you can pass the test - you're in, regardless of who you might otherwise be (or not be). For instance one individual who would have passed a similar exam was Richard Greener [1]. He was the first black man to graduate from Harvard. He did so in 1870, shortly after the Civil War, for some social context. He would, unsurprisingly, go on to lead an extremely distinguished life. Passing the test would obviously require a rigorous dedication and pursuit to academic knowledge, but what is that if not the most pure definition of what college ought be?

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Theodore_Greener

I didn't talk about democratization (why the scare quotes?). I called it elitist because it's elitist. Harder entry exams are a way to only allow higher education for a much smaller percentage of the population, i.e., to an elite. You're obviously not one of them but there are people who think that the largest percentage possible should benefit from higher education. This also requires it to be affordable economically, of course.

I understand that this idea is not necessarily appealing to elitists and to people who only consider education in terms of the economic benefits it might provide.

The scare quotes as I think that's an inappropriate, though common, use of the term.

Rather than argue I'm quite curious of your take on something. Imagine we have a hypothetical individual - Bob. Bob comes from a single parent and poor family. He's the first of his family to attend college. Bob, like most kids doesn't really like school at all. But he eeks by. And he graduates. Having no clue what to do with his life, he decides to whimsically apply for Whatever U, where he's accepted.

Once in he looks for the easiest major - and settles on psychology. Made even easier after noticing all the cute girls in Psych 301. Bob squeezes by mostly using pickaprof, ratemyprofessor, and so on sites to just find the easiest profs who pretty much hand out 4.0s for just showing up. So naturally he ends up a solid 3.0 student. Finally he graduates.

From my perspective, he's now in pretty much the same situation as he was 4 years ago, except now he has 6 figures of debt and a sheet of paper. How would you say Bob has benefited from higher education, in concrete ways? Would you expect his life to be better or worse relative to him just deciding to e.g. pick up an electrician apprenticeship out of high school?

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